Friday, December 3, 2010

Haiti Election


Vivek Kulkarni


Haiti Election

Haiti’s immediate future appears unclear after recently conducted polls to elect its President. Along with this, elections for 99 Deputies and 10 Senator were also conducted. Twelve out of nineteen candidates contesting for the Presidential post alleged massive fraud during the election.

Haiti witnessed a major natural calamity in the form of an earthquake in January of this year. In the month of October there was an outbreak of cholera in which about 1500 people have died. So, there was doubt whether election could be conducted or not, but the United States was determined to conduct the election. There was fear of further spread of cholera due to mobilisation of people on a large scale during the election.

Situation in Haiti was volatile after the cholera outbreak. People believed that The United Nation’s peace-keeping forces were responsible for the outbreak and spread of cholera. Chants such as “we refuse to vote while living under the tarps” were replaced by “cholera and UN peacekeepers are brothers”. The songs were accompanied by burned -cars, flaming tyres, broken glass and the coffins of cholera victims blocking the vehicle movements. Forcing aid workers to suspend their operation and leaving people dead on the streets. Conducting the election in such a situation was a major challenge.

International community had expressed concern over the situation in Haiti. Many countries were of the opinion that the process that establishes democratic set up in any country should also be democratic and they did not want to see people dying in violence. During the election, while there were sporadic incidents of violence, there did not appear any major skirmishes or damage to property. In some places ballot boxes were stolen and several marked ballots were seen on ground. According to media sources many of these ballots were marked for the one candidate named Martelly.

On the day of election, 12 out of 19 candidates contesting for the Presidency called the election as a ‘massive fraud’. On voting day, in the afternoon, these candidates addressed a press conference. Machel Joseph Martely, Mirlande Manigat, Charles-Henry Baker, Jean Henry Ceant were the candidates who spoke in the press conference. A joint statement of all the 12 candidates was issued during the press conference. In the statement they appealed people to take to the streets peacefully against the government and the county’s Provisional Electoral Council, known as CEP. They alleged that there was bogus voting on a large scale.

In response to the statement, supporters of all the leaders hit the street of capital Port-au Prince and the Cap-Haitien, the second largest city in the country, after the polls were closed. Official time for closing of polling was 4 p.m. but it was not sure whether it was closed at that time in all the places. Thousands of supporters sang songs and raised slogans against the government and CEP.

There was problem of electoral listing and at large numbers of names were missing from the electoral rolls. The problem of electoral lists occurred also due to the earthquake and cholera epidemic, as records were missing. Even CEP also admitted the problem in the electoral list. The international aid giving countries conducted the meeting to take stock of the situation.

Result of the election will be declared on December 7. The candidate who secures more than 50% of the total votes will be declared as President. In case, any candidate doesn’t get required votes then top two contenders will again fight an election on January 16 which will ultimately decide the President.



No comments:

Post a Comment